Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers

Project managers require more than knowledge to succeed at their tasks. Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to recognize emotional cues are now essential tools for team leadership. In Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers, Anthony Mersino explains how emotional intelligence, the ability to recognize and understand emotions as well as employ them in the decision-making process, is a crucial asset in successful project management. Effective project managers (PMs) can use emotional intelligence to communicate clearly, set the tone and goals for their projects, engage and motivate team members, foster collaboration, and counter stress and discord. Without these interpersonal competencies PMs risk seeing even the best organized projects fail.

Too often, people remain chained to their pasts simply because they are afraid of the pain that comes with change. In Why Wait to Be Great?, Terry Hawkins, CEO of People in Progress Global, offers straightforward methods to help people overcome their painful pasts by breaking bad habits and replacing them with positive ones to create professional and personal success. Through the fictional characters of Flipman and Pitman, Hawkins demonstrates how everyone has the choice to be happy and fulfilled no matter what their circumstances may be.

Emotional Intelligence: The New Science of Success

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to control and use one’s emotions in a constructive—rather than destructive—manner. This allows an individual to achieve his best performance, while inspiring others.

EI is a composite of many other qualities, such as effective oral communication and an ability to respond well to setbacks, which distinguish the competent from the truly successful. While success has basic threshold requirements—technical skills, for example—the truly crucial characteristics are those that enable people to manage their emotions rather than be derailed by extreme or upsetting circumstances.

Fortunately, there are strategies to improve one’s emotional intelligence. It is important to understand the four domains of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Self-awareness and self-management are related to one’s own personal competence, while social awareness and relationship management have to do with one’s competence in the social arena. One can improve behaviors in each of these domains to develop better overall emotional intelligence.

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Disciplined Emotions

People have just two choices when it comes to their emotions: they can master their emotions or be mastered by them. That doesn’t mean that to be a good team player, you have to turn off your feelings. But it does not mean that you shouldn’t let your feelings prevent you from doing what you should or drive you to do things you shouldn’t.

A classic example of what can happen when a person doesn’t discipline his emotions can be seen in the life of golf legend Bobby Jones. Like today’s Tiger Woods, Jones was a gold prodigy. He began playing in 1907 at age five. By age twelve, he was scoring below par, an accomplishment most golfers don’t achieve in a lifetime of playing the game. At age fourteen, he qualified for the U.S. Amateur Championship. But Jones didn’t win that event. His problem can be best described by the nickname he acquired: “club thrower.” Jones often lost his temper – and his ability to play well.

An older golfer whom Jones called Grandpa Bart advised the young man, “You’ll never win until you can control that temper of yours.” Jones took his advice and began working to discipline his emotions. At age twenty-one, Jones blossomed and went on to be one of the greatest golfers in history, retiring at age twenty-eight after winning the grand slam of golf. Grandpa Bart’s comment sums up the situation: “Bobby was fourteen when he mastered the game of golf, but he was twenty-one when he mastered himself.”

People who often experience relational difficulties are tempted to look at everyone but themselves to explain the problem. But we must always begin by examining ourselves and being willing to change whatever deficiencies we have. Critic Samuel Johnson advised that “he who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief which he purposes to remove.”

The human mind has a tremendous amount of power in our lives. That which holds our attention determines our actions. Because of that, where we are today is the result of the dominating thoughts in our minds. And the way we think determines what our attitudes are. The good news is that you and I can change that. You can control your thoughts, and because of that, you can control your attitude. The point is that your thinking prompts your emotion. Why is that important? Because your attitude is your emotional approach to life. It’s the framework through which you see events, other people, even yourself. That’s why you can believe in the saying, You are not what you think you are, but what you think… you are.”

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